If you thought the story of OJ Simpson's trial was dead and buried, then think again. There's already not one but two projects based on the infamous murder trial coming out this year but now it seems there's a third project being shopped around to TV executives.
A Dallas based private investigator named William Dear spent 21 years gathering evidence on the case and claims to have 'hard evidence' that will exonerate the former NFL star.Simpson was acquitted of killing wife Nicole and her lover Ron Goldman in 1995 but was found liable by a civil jury two years later.
"I have evidence nobody has seen or looked at," said Dear. He released a book in 2012 titled "OJ Simpson is innocent and I can prove it" in which he outlined several alternative theories as to who might be guilty of the murders.
With the Cuba Gooding Jr. and David Schwimmer starring American Crime Story: The People V. OJ Simpson and the five part ESPN series O.J.: Made in America also out this year, one would think that audiences would suffer from OJ fatigue but Dear is hoping those projects will stoke interest in his pitch rather than quell it.
He's got some star power backing his project, with Martin Sheen supporting him and setting up meetings with TV execs. Dear sees his project as an eight to ten part mini-series that would re-investigate the OJ trial from beginning to end a la Netflix's Making a Murderer. If Dear really can back up his claims then this show would certainly be of interest to many as the True Crime genre is insanely popular right now.
It's worth pointing out though that although Simspon is in prison now he is not serving time for the murders of Nicole Simspon and Ron Goldman. He's instead been incarcerated for robbery charges in Las Vegas in 2008. So even if Dear's series did exonerate Simpson, it would have no impact on his prison sentence.
